Zardari confers award on Hindu leader

President Asif Ali Zardari has conferred Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Human Rights Award, for the year 2010, to Bhayya Ram Anjum, a Scheduled Caste Hindu Community leader of Southern Punjab.

Federal Ministry of Human Rights had nominated him for this award on behalf of Minister for Human Rights, Syed Mumtaz Alam Gillani. Bhayya Ram got the award during a ceremony held in the Presidency on the eve of Human Rights Day, some days ago.

Anjum thanked President Ali Zardari and Mumtaz Alam Gillani for selecting him for the award of human rights. He said that problems of Scheduled Caste Hindus were increasing day by day due to lack of their representation in the Parliament despite the fact that they were the largest community with reference to population among the minorities living in Pakistan.

“I wrote several letters to the President as well as Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani to highlight the problems of Scheduled Caste Hindus living in Rahim Yar Khan, specially and of other parts of Pakistan,'' he said.

in generally but they gave me a cold shoulder,” he added. He appealed the President and the Prime Minister to give special attention to the miseries of Hindu minority of Rahim Yar Khan.


(2010-12-25/The Nation, Pakistan)